


how to love a boy at war

by detectivemeer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Depression, Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt Scott, Kitsune Kira, POV Kira Yukimura, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Snapshots, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10612440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivemeer/pseuds/detectivemeer
Summary: Gently. Gently, and for the rest of her life.





	

1\. Start with the nightmares, and end there, too.

College is: them, in their crappy apartment, winding their souls closer than Kira ever thought possible. It’s not seeing Scott for a week, drowning in coffee and highlighter ink. Coming home to him too early Sunday morning, collapsing against his sleeping back, kissing the nape of his neck and mumbling, “Smell good, babe,” before sinking into blissful unconsciousness. Waking up with Scott’s head pressed to her chest, ducking down to nuzzle his soft hair--his curls are growing back out, stuck in an awkward fluffy stage that Kira loves too much to contain, smile breaking her face first thing. Kira kisses him awake. The sheets are cheap cotton and rough on their bare bodies but it’s a good burn, it’s Scott’s lazy stubble and fingernails scraping skin. Scott is decadent in rich golden morning light, eyes dark and dewy and half-open, plump mouth parted in a noiseless gasp. Sweat builds on his upper lip and Kira licks it off, fucking him slow and good, no rush, all silence and stillness and sweetness. “Yeah,” Kira says, and bites down on Scott’s neck as Scott’s breath hitches and he comes under her, boneless and sated as Kira takes her time, because she can, because they’re young and in love and nothing matters to Kira more than Scott in that moment. Her entire life is condensed and distilled to Scott’s fluttering lashes and low, breathless laughter and bright, beautiful eyes watching her.

“Mmm,” Kira mouths at Scott’s shoulder, neck, chin, after. “We are never leaving this bed.”

Scott hums, happy, stretched out and satisfied, letting Kira kiss and kiss him, take her fill. “We have brunch.”

“I hate brunch,” says Kira, emphatic, and Scott laughs joyously, and Lydia sends them twelve angry texts about how she _knows_ they’re not blowing her off to screw each other because, if they were, they would be dead meat and they don’t care, not at all.

College is that, a warm-honey haze of kissing-fucking-loving-loving. Scott sticks post-it notes to his fingertips before going to sleep so, in the morning, he’ll be sure to get the most urgent to-dos done. Sometimes Kira wakes him up by peeling them off, one by one, and sticking them to his nose. Sometimes Scott wakes up, gasping, post-its falling like dropped leaves from autumn trees.

His fingers press tight against his stomach, eyes stoplight red. Warning _danger ahead_ red. A panicked, flickering color that doesn’t take complete hold as Scott blinks, rapid, and heaves painful, wet breaths.

“Hey,” Kira says, sleep-rough, flinging an arm out to flick the lamp on. Scott’s staring up at nothing. “Hey, hey, Scott, it’s okay. I’m here, you’re safe, okay?” She places her hands over Scott’s, loosening his vice-grip minute by minute until she’s got Scott’s palms collected in her hands, stroking his shaking fingers with slow movements. “You coming back to me?”

“Yeah,” Scott whispers, petrified. His face and neck shine with sweat, hair sticking damply to his skin. “Sorry--yeah, I’m fine.” He pushes himself up and swings his legs over the bed, collapsing down against his knees. Kira sets one open hand on the shuddering expanse of Scott’s back and waits with him in the four-in-the-morning quiet; an owl hoots, a group of frat boys cheer in passing, a city bus chugs by. “Sorry,” he says again, and is up in a flash, shutting the bathroom door behind him. Weak yellow light creeps out under the bathroom tile to the bedroom’s carpet and Kira listens to the routine: water faucet on, splash on skin, toilet seat clanking up, dry retching, a flush, water faucet off. Scott’s weight thumping back against the door. Blocked by his body the light vanishes and Kira stretches, goes to sit vigil against the wall.

Here is where the script falls away. Scott could drag himself back to bed in a few minutes and let Kira wrap around him, sprinkle soft kisses up and down his neck. It could be an hour and Scott could just leave, walk out into the gentle dawn and wander. It could be longer. It could be anything.

Kira closes her eyes and leans her head on the doorframe. Scott’s fingers tap on the tile, counting the beats of Kira’ heart, trying to calm his own to match it. Kira’ fingers open and close, open and close. Words pile up like sawdust in her throat. She breathes, even and deep. Inhale, one-two-three. Exhale, one-two-three. A tiny, repetitious dance. A waltz of their lungs that Kira takes lead in.

And, slowly but surely, Scott’s breaths start to follow along.

 

2\. Reciprocation.

He’s just a gasoline boy with a mouthful of matches, begging her to kiss him. His palms are up, his heart beating slow against the inside of Kira’ ribcage. _Don’t do this_ , she wants to say. _Stop killing yourself for causes that don’t deserve you. Stay with me. Stay with me, me, me, me--_

The first selfish bone he grows is broken, with a sword to his stomach and Allison’s blood on his fingers and blown out street lamps and a boy who uses claws instead of a blade. Kira wonders at Scott, times like this. How can someone think they deserve anything when the world rips every sweet thing from their hands and shames them for touching it? It’s no wonder, sometimes, the flinch he gets when someone says something like _love yourself_. It’s no wonder the flinch he gets when Kira skims her fingertips along every ridge of his spine, adoring each marvelous freckle and bump of bone under his warm, warm skin.

Kira feels fury build, the kind the fox likes, the desert-fire kind that feeds and feeds off an inexhaustible source of love. Scott’s body is parched for tenderness but even Kira’s humble offerings are deemed too much. The anger lashes through her. She pops lightbulbs and the microwave is fried.

Scott laughs at her, like he always does, and kisses each one of her fingertips. She buries her face in her hands, embarrassed. His kisses travel to her ears, the crown of her head. He peels away to open their emergency stash of lightbulbs and batteries and such. She breathes into her palms until she feels balanced and lets him carry her around on his shoulders while they swap out the bulbs. He kisses the inside of her knee before he lets her down. She lets the last of her anger melt into warm adoration.

 

3\. Remember his humanity when he can’t.

Kira takes Scott’s hands in his, treating them like the precious things they are. She holds them as gently as she can. “Please be careful,” she says, hushed. “You don’t deserve to hurt.” Kira brings him to the bathroom, sits him up on the counter, legs swinging boyishly off the edge. Scott’s stare is vacant and he doesn’t wince as Kira clears the blood away, rubs a magically enhanced salve onto his palms that will heal him even if he doesn’t want it. “Do you want some water?”

Scott doesn’t so much as blink. The long, deep scratches down his arm glisten, muscle starting to regrow. Kira gnaws at her bottom lip, says, “I’ll be _right_ back,” and ducks out and to the kitchen, quick as she can.

When she returns Scott’s knees are drawn to his chest, claws curled into his calves, rocking gently. Kira sets the glass down, pries his hands from his flesh, again, and Scott’s claws shift away the moment they’re anywhere near Kira’ wrists. Kira sighs, reaches for a hug. Scott cries, silent and still, against her shoulder. Kira makes a mental note, _keep cups in the bathroom_ , and buries her damp eyes in the hollow of Scott’s neck. They stay like that for a long time, until, slowly, Scott seeps back into his own body. He won’t look at her for a while longer, never can. His shame is strong, but he still allows her to hold him.

“I don’t like losing you like that,” she says.

“I know.” His voice is rough. He curls his palms into soft fists. “I know. I’m--”

She pulls his hands to her mouth, kisses his knuckles. His eyes look down, lashes low. “I’m glad you’re here with me. You want to just sit for a while longer?”

“That--yeah,” he sighs, leans into her. “That’d be nice.”

-

She’s just a girl, with parents and superhero leggings and a babbling brook of awkward half-sentences. She has two souls twined inside herself and the only thing they can agree on is this boy, with a smile too gentle to be the sun but doubly as bright. And she wants this, them, her (her now, her life the way it is, the person she’s become--because she _likes_ who she is, damn it, she loves it, and she doesn’t want to lose herself to time, too) forever.

But she wants a small forever, a normal forever, a human forever. She wants her finite forever, or else, she wants to drag them into her actual eternity.

-

She doesn’t want to be left alone.

 

4\. The loop.

He is clawed to death. She’s in the desert, and she’s walking until her feet blister, crack open and bleed. His best friend is killing him, he’s killing his friends, he’s too slow, he’s a monster. She’s made of lightning, she’s bled out in a cave, she loses control. His tears on the pillowcases, her night sweats on the sheets. The claw marks on the headboard, the melted batteries in the alarm clock.

Kira has a macabre moment, too early to call it day, staring at the ceiling while they both try to steady their breaths. _We should take shifts. My nightmares can come on odd days of the month, his on even._

“What if I’m still dead,” Scott whispers.

“You’re not,” says Kira, exhausted but trying not to let it bleed through.

Scott catches it anyway, turns in, brushing butterfly kisses along Kira’ cheek. “Sorry,” he croaks.

“No,” Kira says, arms wrapping around Scott, pulling him closer. “It’s not you.”

“I love you,” he says. “What can I do?”

Kira closes her eyes. Scott nuzzles her neck, nips and kisses and breathes on the skin there, fingers tracing senseless patterns along Kira’ shirt. “Nothing. Just--this. This is good.”

And so they lie there, until the sun rises and melts the shadows from their walls, the dread from their tongues. Breakfast is blueberry white chocolate chip waffles and too much maple syrup, coffee with vanilla creamer. He kisses her coffee mustache away. They watch reruns of game shows and laugh until their stomachs hurt. The day is wide open in front of them, yawning lazily, promising nothing but more terrors that night.

But, she thinks, curled under his arm on the couch, she’d go through much worse for moments like this.

 

5\. Gently. Gently, and for the rest of her life.

He’s so soft, sweet in the mornings. Dawn kisses the clouds pink, his cheeks are warm in the dull sunshine. She kisses his jaw and burrows closer, just wanting this closeness, and him.

“Love you,” she says, and he grins, wide and bright.

“I love you,” says Scott, turning his head to catch her mouth in a long, slow, smiling kiss. She’s going to outlive him, and, thank God for it, too. She doesn’t want to be another tapestry cut out of his life too short. It’s hard to imagine the centuries before her. It’s hard to imagine any reality outside of Scott’s warm skin, his loving hands, his giving heart. The life of a kitsune is long, but it’s so far from lonely Kira hardly can believe it herself. She doesn’t know how to find the words: _you are a light that will burn in me for a thousand years after you’ve left me, your love for me has flowed and overflowed in such excess I can feel it reaching out to touch every moment we’re apart, thank you, thank you, in the nooks of my ribcage, every spare space in my soul, I will keep you with me._

“You are a gift,” she says, and it barely skims the surface of this welling, depthless emotion inside her, but he grins at her words, and she kisses him, kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> scira is so good. visit my tumblurr for more incoherently sad musings


End file.
